


Lost: Translation

by CharacteristicallyMinor



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharacteristicallyMinor/pseuds/CharacteristicallyMinor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TARDIS repairs don't quite go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost: Translation

The Doctor knew many languages, but English was not one of them. This would have surprised many of the people who knew him, as he spent so much time with British humans, but learning English had never been necessary before. The TARDIS was a very competent translator, after all. The Doctor had devoted his time to more complex languages, and he had left the TARDIS translation matrix to do the rest.  
The matrix worked autonomously for the most part, but it had to be manually programmed to translate rarer languages. That was where the Doctor came in.  
When the Doctor had first started fiddling with the inner workings of the TARDIS translation matrix, he really had meant to make one little, tiny modification. He had wanted to see if he could get the TARDIS translation matrix to be able to translate Nino Realtian writing so that he could read a famous poem, Janvixl Dkiroexu. That was all he was going to do. He knew about his tendency to get sidetracked, but he was positive that was not going to happen today.  
Before this, he had been reading in the library with the Ponds. They had enjoyed spending some time relaxing. Then, he stumbled across the untranslated poem. He remembered being very excited about reading it a few hundred years ago, but he had never gotten around to it. Now was the perfect time to finally translate and read it!  
“I’ll be back soon, Ponds. I’m off to see a machine about a poem,” the Doctor had said.   
“Shush!” Amy said. Rory hadn't looked up from whatever he was reading.  
The Doctor really had intended to be back soon.   
But then he remembered that he had been meaning to add in translation protocols for another couple of rare languages. If he didn’t do it now, he might not remember to do it for decades.  
And then one modification lead to another, and the Doctor managed to spend hours working with the translation matrix.  
Naturally, in the course of his work, the Doctor became all tangled up in the matrix’s wires. He had needed to move some of them out of the way in order to get to the others, and the Doctor’s body was the most convenient place to drape the cumbersome wires. After all, he needed his hands free to work.  
When the Doctor finally decided that he was finished working on the matrix, he had some minor difficulties extricating himself from the mass of cords. After several minutes working at the wires, they had become a mess akin to the Gordian Knot. The Doctor feared that he would have to spend quite some time working on the knot before he could be free.   
Luckily, Rory entered the room only a minute or two after the Doctor noticed his predicament. Rory immediately noticed the situation. Without bothering to comment on the situation, he strode over to the Doctor and started to help him disentangle himself. At first, Doctor tried to assist Rory in his efforts to free the Doctor from the knot. The Doctor stopped when Rory frowned at the Doctor’s attempts to “help”. It was clear that Rory thought, perhaps not mistakenly, that the Doctor was making the knot worse. The Doctor also thought that perhaps Rory was annoyed at the Doctor’s wriggling, and Rory did seem to make much more progress untangling the knots when the Doctor held still.  
Finally, the Doctor was free from the horrifically large mess of wires. He was rather pleased about that. Unfortunately, a few of the wires seemed to have come loose from the TARDIS translation matrix at some point. The proper places of the loose wires could not be determined at a glance, since the matrix’s inner workings were a bit of a mess. The Doctor wasn't exactly a tidy person, and he tended to spread disorder wherever he went; the TARDIS’s machinery was no exception.  
The Doctor said to Rory, "Thanks for your help with subduing those cords. I think I got a bit carried away trying to make modifications. In fact, you could say that I got tangled up in my work. Anyways, I’m very hungry. Have you and Amy eaten recently? Sorry about abandoning you two in the library, by the way. I did mean to return."   
For some reason, Rory seemed confused. Before the Doctor asked what was wrong, Rory began talking. Well, the Doctor assumed Rory was talking. He did not understand any of the noises Rory was making, but they sounded like they were some form of speech.  
After a moment of thought, the Doctor figured out what the problem was. The disconnected wires from the translation matrix were probably causing the matrix to be unable to function.   
The Doctor tested whether it was his language or Rory’s that was causing the problem. He hoped that perhaps the matrix would still function to translate one of the Doctor’s other languages into English. After trying seven languages, though, the Doctor concluded that the problem was either with all matrix translations or with Rory’s language in particular. The result was the same, though; until the Doctor fixed the matrix, they would be unable to communicate with each other. This meant that the Doctor needed an interpreter. He knew just the person.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Rory had been having a pleasant day, but he had a feeling that his day had just taken a turn for the worse. The Doctor kept talking to Rory in some incomprehensible language, and Rory was starting to get the sense that this was going to be a serious problem.   
Rory had no idea what could have possibly caused their current predicament. He simply didn't know enough about this type of “timey-wimey” problem. However, the Doctor apparently did.  
The Doctor picked up a wire that had come loose from the big tangle of wires, and he held it up for Rory to examine. The end of the wire was not connected to anything else. The Doctor picked up several more wires that were similarly disconnected. The Doctor made exaggerated upset faces at the wires, miming that the wires were not supposed to be unattached from the rest of the wires.   
Rory nodded, showing the Doctor that he understood that the disconnected wires were the cause of their problem. Rory thought that they had probably been disconnected from some sort of translation device.   
It occurred to Rory that it would be a time-consuming task to plug the wires back into the mess, especially since all of the wires basically looked the same to him. This problem might be unpleasantly long-lasting.  
Rory decided it was time to call for backup.   
"Amy!" Rory called. "Amy, can you come here? We have got a problem."   
Rory thought that Amy would probably be able to understand him, since they both spoke the same language. He assumed that the Doctor probably spoke in a different language, unless he was wrong about the device that the cords were plugged into and it was not a translator.   
The Doctor seemed to understand that Rory was calling for Amy. After all, it was the logical course of action.   
Amy walked into the console room a minute later.  
The Doctor smiled at her and remained silent. That meant that Rory got to explain the problem to Amy.  
Amy asked the pair of them, "So, what’s wrong now? I am assuming that we have a problem because there is no other reason that you would call me away from the library, right? I was at an interesting part of my book!”  
The Doctor said something that Rory couldn't understand to Amy in reply. Amy seemed confused, unsurprisingly.  
"Rory, what’s wrong with the Doctor?" she asked. "I can’t understand a single word that he is saying. Did you understand what he just said?"  
Rory was incredibly glad that he and Amy were able to communicate with each other. He would have hated to be the one who could not understand what the others were saying. Besides, it was reassuring that he was not the only one stuck in space with a pilot who was unable to communicate with them except using mime.   
"That’s why I called you. The Doctor can no longer communicate with us. Basically, the Doctor was doing something with those cords over there, and he got himself tangled up in them. I helped him get loose, but a few of them got disconnected. Unless I misunderstood his miming, those cords are causing us to be unable to understand each other," Rory explained.  
"Well, that’s just wonderful,” Amy said sarcastically. “Hey, what’s he writing?”  
It looked like a bunch of circles connecting with each other and surrounding each other, with a few lines mixed in.   
"It looks like the Doctor’s language. You know, the one from his crib,” Rory said. “I can’t remember what it’s called.”  
“Oh, I think you’re right. It does look like it,” Amy said. “And that means that I have a pretty good guess of who he’s sending a message to.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Doctor had watched Amy and Rory talk to each other. It was clear that he was right about the problem with the matrix being centered on English translation. They were able to speak to each other, since they both spoke the same language, but he couldn’t understand either of them, and they couldn’t understand him.   
Although he had identified the problem, repairing the damage done would take longer. The Doctor wouldn’t be able to speak to the Ponds for a while. However, the Doctor did happen to know someone who spoke English as well as some of the common- and uncommon- alien languages that the Doctor spoke. The Doctor knew that having a translator would make life a whole lot easier for the whole group until they were able to successfully communicate with each other again.  
He pulled out his piece of psychic paper and wrote a brief message on it in Old High Gallifreyan. The message read: "The TARDIS translation matrix is broken. Can you come translate for me and your parents? Love, the Doctor. X." Under the message, the Doctor wrote a line of coordinates for the part of space that the TARDIS was currently residing in.  
Rory and Amy had noticed what the Doctor was doing and were looking at the psychic paper curiously, so the Doctor asked the TARDIS to pull up a photo of River on the screen on the wall. Happily, the TARDIS was fully able to understand the Doctor, although she was no longer able to understand Amy and Rory, so it worked. Rory and Amy smiled and nodded their understanding when they saw the picture, exaggerating their movements so that the Doctor would understand their meaning. The Doctor thought that Amy and Rory had probably already guessed who the Doctor was communicating with. They knew that River was able to speak English, since she had grown up speaking it with them. They also knew that River was able to speak the Doctor’s language. Amy and Rory looked relieved that they would be getting a translator that they knew, especially one who was very competent at working with the TARDIS.   
River entered the TARDIS moments after the Doctor sent her his message- one of the advantages of time travel. She quickly walked down the stairs and to the left, over to where the Doctor, Amy and Rory were standing by the TARDIS translation matrix's jumble of wires. She looked somewhat annoyed with him, but the Doctor could tell that she was also amused. River was usually amused when he messed up, and she had to fix his mistakes. Well, as long as they did not end up getting injured in the process.  
She said to the Doctor, "Were you messing with the translation matrix? Of course you were. You know it works perfectly fine without you trying to add things.”  
The Doctor grinned. He was rather enjoying being scolded by her.  
"In my defense, I had a perfectly legitimate reason to try to make some improvements on the TARDIS translation matrix. It could not translate the writings of the Nino Realtian people, and I really wanted to read Janvixl Dkiroexu as translated by the TARDIS, since all the other translations are rubbish. The TARDIS translation would have been much closer to the original in both meaning and poetic style. And I did manage to fix the TARDIS translation matrix- I just, err, got a bit caught up in my work. I was tied up in it, you could even say." He smirked at his terrible pun.  
River grinned back indulgently. She said, "Sweetie, only you would think that spending hours trying to add a new style of writing to the translation matrix- and a dead language that’s unusually difficult to translate, at that- would be worth it so that you could read a three line poem. Anyways, doesn't the Library have a very good translation of it that you could read, even if the TARDIS library does not yet have one? We are talking about a whole planet of books, which includes a whole continent devoted to poetry. I swear, Sweetie, must you overcomplicate everything? I don’t blame you for having fun causing trouble for yourself, but next time try messing with something that will be a little less inconvenient for my parents. Or at least warn them what you are going to do just in case it goes wrong."  
The Doctor winced at River's casual mention of the Library, one of his least favorite planets. River did not see the Doctor wincing, though, as she was turning towards Amy and Rory and saying something to them. It could have been anything from "I am married to a complete and total idiot" to "Hello, Mum and Dad. It is very good to see you again.” Whatever it was that River had been saying to them, it caused Rory and Amy to smile at River. Rory hugged River first, then Amy hugged her.   
River talked with her parents for a short time, during which the Doctor paced impatiently. He did not like being unable to understand what she was talking to them about, particularly since they all occasionally started laughing. He felt left out, even though he had brought it upon himself.   
Eventually, River turned back to look at the Doctor and talk to him.  
“I’ve explained to Mum and Dad what the problem is in more detail. Mime is really not very good for conveying details. They want to help us fix this, and they aren’t even too mad at you. It’s your lucky day. So, do you want to start untangling the cords now?” River asked the Doctor.  
“Yes! Of course I want to start fixing this! I want to be able to talk to Amy and Rory again! It’s extremely boring when everyone else is talking in another language and I can’t understand what they’re saying,” the Doctor said, pouting.  
“I am sorry that we made you feel left out, but it is impossible for me to talk to both you and my parents at the same time. Don’t forget that I talked to you before I said hello to them. Anyways, we’ll have this repaired soon enough,” River said.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
In the end, it took a week of working before the TARDIS translation matrix was able to translate English again. During that time, River had to translate everything that the Doctor wanted to tell the Ponds. She ended up being in charge of the repair project. River stated that she was much less likely to decide to keep “fun” errors in the TARDIS translation matrix, unlike a certain stubborn, quirky man who enjoyed the noise that the parking brake of the TARDIS made when it was left on unnecessarily and who was perfectly capable of repairing the broken chameleon arch. Besides, it’s easier to lead a group of people when you can talk to all of them.  
When they got the TARDIS translation matrix to finally start working, the whole group rejoiced. The Doctor started happily chattering away to Amy and Rory, who were equally relieved to be able to understand him again. River was also happy that the matrix had been fixed, as she was tired of having to relay every single thing that her husband said to her parents, and vice versa. It had been amusing at the very beginning, but it made conversations tediously slow. Besides, everyone had grown tired of spending so much time untangling cords.  
The TARDIS was happy, too. She no longer was having trouble understanding her Ponds. Their words were now easy to understand. It was nice, not having to worry about whether she would be able to tell if they needed something. The only problem with the repairs to her translation matrix being complete was that it meant that her River would be leaving soon. Her River never stayed with her and her Doctor for very long. She was a flighty child, and the TARDIS loved her for it.  
Sure enough, River left after staying on the TARDIS for only a couple more days. After that, life on the TARDIS resumed as normal. They spent their time travelling through space and time and living out their ordinary, extraordinary lives on the TARDIS. They would have more adventures and more problems. It was the way of the Doctor.


End file.
